Two adults and
seven children were injured Sunday when the driver of their vehicle fell
asleep behind the wheel on I-94 in LaPorte County, the Indiana State Police
said.

According to
police, at 3 a.m. Blair Beathea, 31, of South Bend, was eastbound on I-94,
around 2.5 miles east of the Michigan City exit, when she fell asleep.
Police said that her 2007 Dodge Nitro left the roadway, traveled down an
embankment, hit a tree, and came to rest on its roof in a water-filled
drainage ditch culvert.

Beathea was
transported to Memorial Hospital in South Bend with leg and respiratory
issues; police said; front-seat passenger Alisa Bolden, 23, of Chicago--also
asleep--was transported to Franciscan Health Michigan City with head and
facial trauma.

Also injured,
police said: a 3-year-old girl with injuries to forehead and hand
transported to Franciscan; a 1-year-old boy initially taken to Franciscan
and later transported to Comer’s Children in Chicago with non-life
threatening injuries; a 8-year old girl with complaint of pain; twin
5-year-old boys, one with a dislocated shoulder and head trauma and the
other with abrasions and complaint of pain, both transported to Franciscan;
and twin 3-month-old girls with non-life threatening injuries initially
taken to Franciscan and later transported to Comer’s.

“There were only
two car seats and one booster seat in the SUV,” police said.